Harvest
by Lemon Cakes
Summary: A series of short stories. About the life of a young Lilty as she discovers the hows and whys of life.
1. Celia

_Harvest_ is a collection of short stories, depicting life in Tipa through the eyes of one little girl. It's my first story since my multi-year hiatus, and I'm more confident in my ability now.

The narrator is a child, so I tried to keep the language simple.

The Final Fantasy franchise is property of Square-Enix.

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**Celia**

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She always walks by the flowerbeds outside our door, stopping and kneeling to have a smell. I watch her dust imaginary flecks of filth off her skirt, tightening the knot on her bonnet. She looks my way, smiles and waves, then goes to Emil, the old Yuke's, house, to read and work. My older sister, Ellie, works at Emil's bakery as well, and every once in a while the smell of fresh bread she brought home from the job wafts through the door of our house. I think I have seen Celia, too, carrying a plump loaf to her home, her mother.

Celia is a girl a year or two younger than my sister, tawny hair, awkwardly tall for a Clavat, with pretty green eyes. She is old enough to be in a caravan, but like Ellie she is not brave or strong like my brother who left two years ago. I have never heard Celia speak, though I have seen her mother around the village. Mama invited her in on more than one occasion, and she gave Ellie and me some fresh vegetables. They were crisp and sweet, until Mama put them in her stew and clogged up the flavors with cabbage stink and stewed meat.

This afternoon, I have nothing to do. Celia pulls herself up from smelling the flowers, looking at me for a brief second. As she waves, I decide on what seems like a good idea. I am going to follow Celia. I want to see her home, her life, I want to finally hear her voice. Celia turns her head and walks to the center of town, to Emil's bakery. I watch her for a few minutes. With a yawn, I turn away, going to a patch of sand and trees by the windmill. Mama and Papa said that there was a salesman here, a Selkie, who would come here every few seasons and sell things. They say, with frowns on their faces, that he dressed like a beggar and had an ugly accent, that he'd eye over the other people with contempt and even that he pickpocketed from his customers. Mama and Papa say he never showed his face around the village since before I was born. I would so like to meet him to see if these things are true.

I don't understand. Mama and Papa don't talk about the other people in town like that. Emil is only looked on as strange, and the Clavats in most of the village bring almost no reaction at all. But a mere mention of Selkies conjures up spitting and frowns, insults and gossip. I even hear the whispering and see the frowning from other people in the village. Should I be afraid of them? I have never seen a Selkie in my life. Are they plain-faced and tall like the Clavats in this village, or do they stick out, like Emil?

As I lie in the sand, I notice footsteps and someone coming down the path. Celia! And Ellie is with her. I hear Celia's voice at last as she kneels to my sister's level: hushed whispers into my sister's ear, then standing up and staring straight ahead as she walks home, loaf of bread in her arms. My sister has found me.

"Ingrid!" Ellie says, grabbing my hand. "Your dress is all dirty! Mama is going to be so mad…"

"I was visiting you." I said.

As we walk home, I notice a group of old, hunched people in the square. They say a lot of words I don't understand, and from what I do understand, they're talking about Celia. I frown.

The next day as I saw Celia in front of our house, I tell her about the old people in town. She remains expressionless, like a doll, then takes my hand.

"Don't you care?" I ask her, looking up at her tawny hair and pretty eyes, her face sharp like stone.

"No." she says simply, walking to her house. "And I think Emil would understand if I didn't come to work today. I have something for you."

Celia's voice is clunky and metallic, like machinery, like clockwork.

I accept this, though I am a bit confused. I follow Celia, noticing once again the people whispering. Again, in the words I don't understand. Again, about Celia. There are things about her mother too, and all sorts of words that seem rude or gross. Mama once slapped Ellie for saying one.

"Are you sure you don't care?" I ask, and again she shakes her head. We enter her house, and she leads me to a shelf.

"Stay here, applehead, I'll get it." Celia says, standing on her toes. She feels around for a while, then pulls out a dusty old book. I take it from her, flipping through it.

"It's a cookbook." I finally say, and she nods.

"Your sister left it here."

We begin our journey home after I wave goodbye to Celia's mother, a kindly, somewhat pudgy Clavat woman. Mama says she used to be beautiful. Celia and I walk on, until I come to the patch of sand with trees.

"There used to be a Selkie merchant here, my mama says." I tell her.

"Yes."  
"Have you ever seen him?"  
"No."

I sigh, hoping that she had. She finally tells me:

"I've never seen him, Ingrid. My mother and he were friends though."

My eyes go wide, and I ask her to tell me.

"My mother used to be in the caravan. They met a lot. Talked a lot. Sent letters. Sometimes they'd camp together and share meals. The rest of the old caravan just used that to get their hands on the good stuff."

I am satisfied. She walks me home, telling me some members of the old caravan- Emil, and Eric, the other Lilty man besides Papa in the village. I tell Celia about how Mama and Papa and Eric and some of the other villagers talk about Selkies, these Selkies I have never seen. She keeps a straight face.

"I'm not going to do that." I say. "It doesn't seem nice."

Celia remains silent as we walk home. I see the rows of houses and finally the yellow and blue flowers, outside our house with their sweet smell. Celia sniffs them for a bit, but doesn't smile. Before I go inside, I look at Celia one last time.

"Are you sure you don't care about what those men said back there?"

She looks at me, smiling, and waves goodbye.

"I really don't, Ingrid. They're probably right."


	2. Fireflies

**Author's Note**: Thanks alls for the reviews and criticism. For those of you expecting action, I'll remind you that the main character- Ingrid- is a child, and a puny one at that. She's like, _eight_ at most? But I'm enjoying writing about her discovering the ways of the world…

Also, as you can see, Celia is going to turn out to be a _much_ more important character in later chapters. I realize that some of you know her secret already, but keep it to yourself. All will be revealed in the next chapter.

I'm kind of experimenting here, trying to use the **simplest** words I can to get a message across. I'm also trying another technique, but I'll leave you to ponder that. ;)

**Fun Fact:** The original title for this story was going to be "The Good Earth", but Pearl S. Buck is too awesome to copy off of. It _did_, however, inspire some of this story (another book that did this was _To Kill a Mockingbird_).

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**Fireflies**

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Celia didn't leave the house today. I didn't hear the soft patter of her footsteps, I didn't see her fuddle with the scarf about her head as she stopped to look at our flowers. I didn't even hear her voice when she whistled her low tune as she went to work.

I was thinking about that that afternoon, until Mama came to call me to supper. I go to her, and I sit down in the kitchen as Papa puts out the last flames on the stove. I prod the meat, not wanting to tell Mama what I am thinking. Mama glances at me for I while, and I eat. I'm full before I even finish half the plate.

"Mama, can I go to my room now?" I ask her, with sad eyes. She lets me, and I spend the evening standing by my window. Celia's house is next door. I see Celia come out, with her face like a porcelain doll.

She does not look happy, but I don't see her crying, and it's too far away to see her frowning. But she has her head hung low the whole time I watch her. Celia is wearing a grey dress, and the parts where it's not grey are white. She is talking to Emil and two men I haven't seen before, both Clavats with scruffy beards and crazy smiles on their faces.

More minutes pass. The men carry a big wooden box out of Celia's house, big enough to fit a person inside and made of warped wood filled with holes and scratches. Celia walks with them as they go to the sea. I don't see them again.

Mama sends me to bed.

The next morning I see Mama with a halfhearted smile on her face, giving Celia and her mother a jar of her apple jam each. Mama's apple jam has a nice, chunky texture to it, and you can taste the apples and spices. It's not that sweet, but it's so good. The apple jam is one of the few things that Mama can cook well, but she only makes it during the winter or when she wants to give some to her friends.

Celia's mother has a sullen look on her face, and she never looked right at Mama. She doesn't look right. Celia has her straight statue face as usual, and her big eyes are right at the level with Mama's.

"Thank you," she says in her clockwork voice, barely above a whisper.

"You're welcome Celia. And Laura..."

They talk for what seems like eternity. Later that night, I see Ellie stooping down by the flowerbeds, watering the pansies. There are little lights flickering about her, and my sadness is put aside for the moment. The fireflies crowd around the village and especially our garden every summer. They dance around the flowers to the music of the air and the ocean.

"Hey Ellie."

"Ingrid." She says to me, smiling and putting the bucket down. I watch her, trying to keep my eyes off the fireflies as they dance around the torch.

I can't resist much more. I cup my hands out, catching a little firefly and smiling widely.

"You're going to miss those, aren't you Ingrid? They don't have them in the city."

Of course she's talking about Alfitaria. Mama says it's a great city and the crown jewel of our tribe, whatever that means. I've never seen much of it. Mama and Papa mean to send Ellie and me there; Ellie is going to get married to a boy whose family Papa's known for some time. Mama and Papa want to send me to a school there.

"They don't?"

"No, because the temperature isn't right and there's too much going on. You won't learn _that_ at that fancy-shmancy school they're sending you too."

I think for a while as to what all this means, and my smile vanishes.

"Everyone here will be far away."

"But of course."

I let the firefly in my hand go- they always die if I try to put them in a jar. I hug Ellie, bidding her good-night and going straightway to bed.


	3. Exist

Okay. I thought I might clear up just what Celia's all about, just so we can all stop wondering. Got it?

I've SOOOOOOOO forgotten about this story.

* * *

And Ingrid's a little older now. That's why the voice is different. Also my writing style's changed a bit. And this is VERY short since I want to only clarify things on Celia. And they're pretty good friends now.

When the old Selkie merchant came to town a few days ago, Celia's shy doll-face was contorting into surprised, hopeful eyes and a chattier mouth. By now it was cold, and all the colors had withered as the flowers dried up and their crumbly remains were taken by the wind as she put them in her hair and danced away from the sea with it. I didn't know why I thought that way. Maybe it was because Ellie left. Maybe it was because of Celia. Celia was very much my only friend now.

Today I followed Celia to the merchant's stall after she came through the door from Emil's bakery. The usual apron around her dress and multicolored scarf she haphazardly placed along her hair to keep it out of the buns was gone. I could tell she intended to meet this man for something else, as she pulled at her gloves. She pushed me aside.

"Kid... kid. Ingrid. Just stay awhile here, I won't be long."

She then walks away. I made my way down the sandy path back to Emil's shop, kicking up the dirt as I walked. How could Celia just toss me aside like that? I'd always followed her from now on, what now? What now?

I came to the place. I'd always imagined the bakery as an old, crumbly ruin with its brown stone and its oval wooden door just jutting out of nowhere, and the pink flowers that, like magic, seemed to always be sprouting their little heads up and greeting the customers any time of year. And Emil's shop was always smelling of bread, especially the kind Celia liked, with the herbs growing out of Emil's back window baked right into it. I always thought it was too bitter.

Emil handed me the kind with apples, mumbling something about Celia and it coming out of her wages. He was the only Yuke in our village, and looked to be made of bits of rusted metal and tattered blankets. Somehow I expected him to fall over all tarnished and lifeless any second, but it never happened.

"Who's Celia talking to?" I asked him.

"An old friend of her mother's, little one." he told me.

"You were in the caravan too."

"That I was."

I 'hesitated', as Celia called it, a while before asking him the next thing.

"Did you ever see this new friend?"

He hesitated too. Then responded.

"Yes. They were very good friends, little one, it's actually a wonder that they didn't stay in touch. I never quite knew the man so well myself-"

And then Celia and the Selkie merchant walk in. It was really the first time I'd seen a Selkie in my life- he would've been handsome by standards other than a Lilty's, tall, muscular, though he seemed to look scruffy and weathered, like an old, much-abused pair of boots. Celia's awkwardly elegant, doll-like, clockwork appearance seemed only to make the scene more inappropriate.

"You don't want to see her, then-" she told him. Or more like accusing, before I felt the spray of feathers from Emil's arm whisk me to the back room. "I'm not asking for your damn sympathy. Or your love. But how can she not see you?"

That was Celia's voice. The man said something muffled and I couldn't understand it- my head was spinning and all I could think about was how angry Celia had been.

"I'm not a liar."

Silence.

"Sir... I just wanted to make you aware that I very much do exist. Thought you might've liked to know that."

And something tells me at least part of the man would have. And then I know what Celia's talking about. And I know why she's angry.

And I know why of all people, she loved her mother most of all.

* * *

It sucked. I know. But if you can't figure out what the hell Celia's about, you gain 50 stupid points. 


End file.
